Listen to narration by a local historian

Dewey Avenue Presbyterian Church

Jeff Ludwig

Historical Researcher, City of Rochester

Venerable and aged though it appeared, the Dewey Avenue Presbyterian Church was still relatively new when this photograph was snapped on a cold winter’s day in 1930. The house of worship, located at 1261 Dewey Ave., had been dedicated only 11 years earlier on Sept. 9, 1919.

The history of the church traces back further still. The original congregation, consisting of 13 founding families — all residents of Dewey Avenue — organized themselves in 1911. They petitioned for the erection of a neighborhood church, and convinced the Rev. George Fickes, then a minister at Grace Presbyterian Church, to splinter off with them as their first pastor.

It was Fickes who selected the site for the church, choosing a picturesque spot near the intersection of Dewey Avenue and Seneca Park Way that he favored from his daily bicycle rides through the city. A small wooden church, built with volunteer labor, opened its doors on this property in 1912. Even then, however, plans were afoot for something larger.

Construction for the current Dewey Avenue Presbyterian Church took place between 1917 and 1919. Amid delays caused by American entry into the First World War, a grand structure slowly rose into place.

The finished product, which cost around $80,000, combined an artful Byzantine architecture style with utilitarian design. Its exterior included a large dome above a square base, accented by elegant columns. The spacious interior of the church featured an auditorium, a gymnasium and a three-story educational facility.

Church membership grew along with the physical capacity of the building, which could hold 600 people for Sunday service. The size of the congregation, indeed, already surpassed 550 by the day of the church’s dedication ceremony.

When the mortgage taken to finance the church was paid off in 1947, congregants gathered to celebrate in an unusual way: by burning the document. “Flames spurted two feet into the air,” one eyewitness recounted, “and as the mortgage melted into nothingness, the organ boomed and the people sang the jubilant ‘Great is Jehovah.’ ”

Members of the Dewey Avenue Presbyterian Church also had a emblazed passion for social justice. Throughout its history, church leaders took strong moral stands on a number of national and local issues, with pastors advocating political positions from the pulpit on matters like Cold War ideology and urban policy.

Of note on the Rochester level, in the early 1960s, Dewey Avenue Presbyterian spearheaded the creation of the Maplewood Neighborhood Association. The church played an instrumental grass-roots role in hosting and orchestrating community festivals and meetings.

This legacy of outreach endures. Now known as the St. Luke Tabernacle Community Church, the institution remains a stronghold of faith and community activism. In February, 2014, St. Luke’s opened the JoAnn McDonald Health and Wellness Center to offer free walk-in medical service and counseling for those in need.

On the eve of its centennial, the gorgeous building at 1261 Dewey is still an anchor of the neighborhood. Just as its founders intended.